


Kinktober 2020 - Day 31: Free Day! (Platonic Frisk, Asriel, Alphys, and Sans, SFW)

by yastaghr



Series: Yastaghr's Kinktober 2020 [31]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Asriel Dreemurr Lives, College, Depressed Sans (Undertale), Depression, Established Alphys/Undyne (Undertale), Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinktober, Kinktober 2020, No Smut, Nonbinary Frisk (Undertale), Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Sans (Undertale) Needs a Hug, Soul Damage, Teenage Asriel Dreemurr, Teenage Frisk (Undertale), nervous alphys, scientist alphys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27303547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yastaghr/pseuds/yastaghr
Summary: Sans is hiding something. Yeah, maybe their college road trip wasn't the best place to bring it out into the open, but, really, what did you expect?
Series: Yastaghr's Kinktober 2020 [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947772
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	Kinktober 2020 - Day 31: Free Day! (Platonic Frisk, Asriel, Alphys, and Sans, SFW)

**Author's Note:**

> Last day! This comes from a fic that I started to write and proceeded to forget and hate. I like this part though, so please enjoy!
> 
> Tomorrow I will post the first chapter of a new longfic: The Opposite of Amnesia. It's Bad Sans Poly/Blue!

Alphys

Alphys carefully drove the car along the interstate, eyes nervously glancing at the signs, the mileage markers, the other vehicles. Frisk’s second-hand hatchback would be no match for the semis and pickups that seemed to be all that existed out this far, and Alphys was terrified of what Toriel would say if she managed to get in an accident while on the college road trip.

They’d gone through so many colleges already, things were starting to blur together; luckily, this was their last stop. Why Toriel and Asgore had both been called to a last minute diplomatic convention was anyone’s guess - usually, they could manage for at least one of the Royal Parents to get away. Alphys was terrified she would let them down.

She stole a quick glance in the rearview mirror, sighing with relief that nothing drastic had changed since the last time she’d looked back there. Sans was still pretending to be asleep after losing a pun battle with Frisk, and Asriel was busy texting...someone. Probably MK, his best friend, who was somewhere in Canada with Undyne at a peacekeeping conference. The armless teenager was deeply interested in criminology, and Undyne had managed to snag him a seat as her assistant. She and Papyrus had gotten oddly competitive over who would win the role of ‘greatest mentor’. Clearly it’s still anyone’s game.

Frisk flicked on the radio, channel surfing until they finally found one they liked - seems even out here in the middle of nowhere, Nabstablook’s Spooky Tunes still had a following. Who’d have guessed? She had to admit, it was better than some of the stuff Mettaton had come up with for his musicals in the underground. She still couldn’t get Oh My Love out of her head.

A couple of miles later, she was regretting offering to drive. Asriel and Frisk had started an argument about Shyren’s new album, and it had quickly turned into a shouting match. She hadn’t even heard it yet! She glanced in the mirror, hoping to signal Sans to make a pun, or interfere, or something...but he was staring out the window. No help there...wait, was that a tear? She quickly reached over and nudged Frisk, who turned a glare on her that quickly vanished when she saw what Alphys was signing to her. 

-SANS-

Frisk looked over at the skeleton and noticed what Alphys was worried about - Sans had a trail of blue tears leading down from his left eye socket, “Uncle Sans, are you okay?”

He started, and quickly wiped the tears from his face, his usual smile back in place. Asriel was caught mid-breath, and quickly turned to his seatmate, catching a glimpse of the tears before Sans could remove the evidence, “What’s up, Uncle Sans? Ya worried ‘bout something?”

Sans glared at him, then once again put up his happy mask, “nothing, kiddo. ‘m happy for the two of you, is all. big deal, going off to college.”

Asriel huffed. She doubted he had missed the obvious attempt at changing the subject, but the prince had a surprisingly stubborn streak when it came to his friends’ problems. He had even out waited Frisk a few times, and that took skill, “You’re not happy with yourself, though, are ya?”

Sans turned his head, eye sockets dropping into darkness for a split second, “me? i’m the happiest bag of lazy bones you’ll find this side of the barrier.”

“Uncle Sans, what’s wrong?” Alphys could hear the determination in Frisk’s voice. She knew Sans wasn’t getting out of this car until both Frisk and Asriel were satisfied he had shared everything, even if it meant sitting there for days.

Sans let out a quiet sigh, “i’m fine, kiddo. why wouldn’t i be? you broke the barrier - you’ve brought us all so much happiness - you even found a way to bring the prince here back from the dead. what could i possibly have to be sad about.”

Alphys paused. Did he really think...he must! But that was stupid, surely… “Sadness d-d-doesn’t always need-d a reason, S-sans. Sometimes, we get-t sad for no r-reason whatsoever; those are the h-hardest times to get p-p-past,” Oh no, she was stuttering again. She’d worked so hard to get past it, but sometimes, it would creep up on her.

She caught Asriel’s nod in the rearview mirror, “Yeah! Frisk gets like that sometimes,” Frisk turned around in their seat and stuck their tongue out at him, “What? It’s true. You were camped out in your room for three days last time. I had to drag you out by your ankles,” Alphys giggles at the image of Frisk desperately holding onto the doorframe as Asriel tugged them out of that den of a room they slept in. 

“that must have been a real  _ drag _ .”

Frisk rounded on him, “Don’t try to joke your way out of this, Uncle Sans,” He slumped in his seat, “When did this sadness thing start? This morning, yesterday?”

“i’d tell you if i could, but since i’m not sad, i can’t.”

Frisk and Asriel spoke as one in the exasperated tones of annoyed teenagers everywhere, “SANS!”

He sighed, and Alphys could tell he had given up, “dunno, really. ‘s hard to tell. some days are worse than others,” She sucked in a breath. Oh, no. Was he...she felt his scowl through the back of her seat, “don’t tell my brother. he’d never leave me alone.”

She didn’t want to make that promise if what she suspected was true. Depression in monsters was even more dangerous than it was in humans, since the state of their emotions  fed directly into their SOUL, and they could easily  crack if nothing was done in time. She had to be sure, though, because most of the methods she knew to prevent Fracturing were dangerous to a healthy monster. Luckily, she knew more about monster biology and psychology than almost anyone in the world, “Sans, how have you b-b-been sleeping l-l-lately?”

She  felt the panic radiate off him. Maybe she should have answered his request? No, she promised Frisk she wouldn’t lie, and if Sans really was depressed… “what kind of a question is that? i sleep, same as usual.”

Alphys felt that that was a misdirection. She looked over at Frisk, who elaborated, “Naps during the day, horribly at night. Papyrus is always complaining about it,” That did not sound good. Those were not the sleeping patterns of a healthy monster. She noticed Frisk signing something out of Sans line of sight. 

-Since before I fell down.- 

That...scared her. How could he have lived like that for so long? Another question was in order, “And how often d-d-do you eat?” She’d noticed he hadn’t come down for breakfast at all during the trip, and he’d always been elsewhere when lunch time rolled around. She couldn’t seem to recall how much he ate at dinner, either.

She saw him shrug in the rearview, then turn his skull to face the window, “when i get hungry. why the health quiz?”

Asriel piped up, “He doesn’t eat hardly anything at all, Alphys. Uncle Pappy makes him eat spaghetti at least once a week, and Mom invites them over for pie on Saturdays. Even then he hardly touches the food.”

Frisk nodded, “Grillby was telling me during jazz night last month that he only comes in once or twice a day now, and all he orders is ketchup.”

She noticed Sans had pulled the hood of his blue jacket over his skull. His shoulders were hunched in such a way that she couldn’t see his face, but she could still  feel the pain and sadness rolling off him. She heard Sans mumble, “it’s my favorite.”

Alphys was certain now. The symptoms were all there, bar the ones she couldn’t bring herself to ask about, and with the  emanations he was giving off, it had gone unchecked a long time. She wondered how much it took out of him to hide it from his brother...she had to be certain how bad his SOUL had gotten. Signaling carefully, she maneuvered the car off the highway. They were overdue for a rest stop, anyway. 

“Sans, when was the l-l-last time you went in f-f-for a checkup?” She  felt the panic again as she turned into a parking lot, “Asriel, can you take a l-l-look at his SOUL for me, like you d-d-did during that int-t-ternship last summer?” She turned, and  felt the magic buildup that signaled one of his showier teleports, “STOP HIM!”

\-----

Asriel

“Frisk, didya hafta hit him so hard?  Healing ’s hard!” 

“What else did you expect me to do? If I grabbed him, he’d just take me with him, and it’s not like I can use magic on him,” Some days I wonder ‘bout that. Dad says some humans are born with magic, just like us. No other humans we’ve met seem to be able to SAVE and LOAD. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were a mage. I’ll hafta ask Alphys sometime. 

I finish  healing Sans’ skull. I might have been exaggerating when I said  healing was hard; Sans is just really tricky - how does he even survive with just 1hp? “Alphys, do you still want to take a look at his SOUL?”

Her stutter is getting better now that she feels she’s being useful. I wish we could help her with her low self-esteem, but until we know more about the interaction of the SOUL, mental, and emotional health in monsters, it’s all guesswork, “Go ahead, Asriel. It’ll be easier when he’s not resisting.”

I nod, then I carefully  call out his SOUL. I nearly panic when I see the state it’s in. How can anyone be alive with a SOUL that cracked? There’s barely a centimeter of the blue-tinged white heart that doesn’t have a spider web of cracks running through it. Frisk looks green - then again, I know they sometimes remember snippets of other timelines thanks to Chara. Whoda thunk my old playmate was such a psychopath? Wait, that was a Flowey thought...guess I’m not the best person to make judgement calls, am I?

Frisk’s voice is shaking, “A-a-alphys? What d-d-do we d-d-do? Alph-ph-phys?” The scientist is frozen in shock. I reach over and nudge her.

“Oh,” she squeaks, “Um, I th-think I’ll need my bag. C-can you get it f-f-for me?” Frisk runs over to the car. Alphys looks over at me, and I can see the fear in her eyes. She doesn’t wanna screw this up, and she’s terrified that she will. I try to look reassuring. I hope I’m succeeding.

Frisk returns with the bag, and Alphys rummages around inside, finally pulling out an odd box I’ve never seen before. It’s vaguely rectangular, although close enough to square that I might be wrong. It’s big enough that she need two hands to hold it, although it’s so thin that it easily hid in her cavern of a bag. The sides are corrugated plastic, and the back has an indent, like a reverse funnel, that leads to a convex lens. Her claws race over the rubbery, unlabeled buttons that cover the bottom half of the front. The other half is a screen which flickers to life, showing a familiar list of numbers alongside an unfamiliar graph.

“This is my latest invention, a portable stats viewer with a few extra features. The graphs can be set to show magic levels, DETERMINATION concentrations, SOUL fluctuations...human doctors needed a way to view a monster’s SOUL, and it might even be useful for humans!” Golly, that’s amazing! A lot of those things are so difficult to monitor without magic, or even if the magic you have isn’t the right kind. DETERMINATION is dangerous for most monsters to look at, anyway, 

“This can’t be right,” I look over at her, curious, “There’s n-n-no way his SOUL can be stable like...like this! I don’t…” She flicks through several graphs, landing on one with a familiar red bloom, “Oh, no. Sans, why would you…” Frisk nudges her out of her shocked silence. She looks up at Sans’ SOUL, then over at Frisk, then back to Sans’ SOUL, “His DETERMINATION levels are higher than any monster’s I’ve ever seen. Higher than most humans, even. Dangerously high.”

\-----

Sans

He felt...odd. He’d gotten used to the grey feelings that came, sometimes, but this was something different. He couldn’t feel at all, almost like...he  reached for his magic, ready to take on whoever had attacked him, probably Chara, and...he couldn’t  reach it. He opened his eye sockets, turning his head to see...Asriel, not in murderous flower mode. Frisk, eyes safely brown and deeply concerned. Alphys, leaning over him, with some kind of machine pointed at…

His SOUL. It looked about the same as usual, still surprisingly intact, despite everything he’d been through. Well, that explained the concern, at any rate. Frisk hadn’t ever seen his SOUL, no one had. He knew better than to let others in like that - they’d only panic. He was fine...wasn’t he? He tried to  tug his SOUL back into place, but Asriel was  holding it too tightly for that to work. He sighed.

Everyone turned to look at him, expressions ranging from the anger of someone who was worried about a friend’s poor decisions, to the terror of someone who thought they might lose something important, to the heart achingly tender look of someone who knew EXACTLY what he was going through. Guess it was pity party time, “would you have a  _ heart _ and let me have my SOUL back, asriel? i’m  _ heartbroken  _ without it.”

Oddly enough, jokes did not seem to be helping him. Frisk’s expression shifted into a scowl, “Uncle Sans, why didn’t you tell anyone about this?” His brow bone furrowed. Tell anyone about what? This was how his SOUL had looked for as long as he could remember. 

Alphys jumped in with another question that hit him like a bulldozer, “Sans, why d-d-do you have so much D-D-DETERMINATION?” His mind raced for several minutes, digging through his memory for any kind of an answer that wasn’t the real one, any kind of half-truth he could tell that they would accept. He wasn’t coming up with anything...wait. Maybe…?

He turned towards Frisk, carefully shielding his hand from Alphys, and signed:

-CHARA-

Asriel caught the edge of it too, and gulped. It wasn’t exactly a lie, either. He’d gotten so much of their blood on his hands over the RESETs that some of their DETERMINATION had seeped in. Even more, he’d injected himself in a desperate attempt to stop the bloody demon. It hadn’t worked for the longest time, but in the end...well, despite everything he’d said, Frisk had come back; here they all were, standing in the sun - or, at least, they would be, if the day wasn’t so damned cloudy.

Alphys looked annoyed at the silent interchange that was going on around her, but since none of them had told her of the RESETs and Frisk’s little passenger, she’d just have to deal. Frisk’s face twisted into a familiar expression of DETERMINATION, “Uncle Sans, do you think you can do something for us?” She paused for a long time - oh, right. Response needed. He nodded, “Alphys has been working on a compound to help depressed monsters heal SOUL damage. Would you be willing to take it?”

He shuddered. He REALLY didn’t like being somebody’s lab rat, and ingesting medicine...brought back bad memories. But…it was Frisk...he groaned, “for you kid? of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on:
> 
> Tumblr - https://yastaghr.tumblr.com  
> Twitter - https://twitter.com/yastaghr * Most active


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